Red-billed Hornbill

[Mitchell Krog]

Hi all, I took this shot a few days ago in Sabi Sands when we stopped for our morning coffee in the bush. It was around 8:20am and the light still had a bit of a golden touch to it. This image is straight from RAW, I did not touch a single thing as I did not think anything needed to be touched, other than a crop. Comments welcome.

This was taken with the new Nikon 70-200 VR2, Nikon D3s, ISO 200, 1/5000 @ f/2.8 (Fill Flash)

[Mike Godwin]

The south end of a north bound bird is hardly ever pleasing, but this kinda works for me. Personally, I'd like to have a real closeup of the head here or tighter crop. Depth of field is problematic shooting at 1/5000 at 2.8 and it shows here.

[Deborah Hanson]

Agree with above comment regarding techs. I usually try to keep aperture up at the expense of the shutter speed.
I like the perch and the position of the bird on it. The bird's expression, that you were able to capture, is great.

Deb

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the preening pose and would put the bird a bit further to the left in the frame. I agree that stopping down would have been the way to go, raising ISO to 400 does not add much noise. Could you have moved back a bit for a less steep angle?